It is apparent that the number of personal and household objects which people carry with them on a daily basis increases. This leads to a great deal of clutter in a person's belongings. For example, a person may carry a garage door opener, a cigarette lighter, flashlight, pocket knife, keys, cellular telephone, beeper, and the like. With this quantity of devices, it can be difficult to find a particular object, such as one's cigarette lighter, quickly.
Compounding this difficulty is the fact that such objects are becoming smaller. Thus, for example, it may be difficult for a person to quickly and easily locate a garage door opener in one's pocket, gym bag, purse, backpack, or the like when one is carrying a number of small objects.
One device which attempts to address this problem is disclosed in Lewis, U.S. Pat. No. 4,486,169. Lewis discloses a belt holder for a cigarette lighter which includes a tether. However, the drawback of this device is that the holder may be bulky and unwieldy. Moreover, the belt holder looks unattractive. Also, the mechanisms for attaching the lighter to the tether lack release actuators, thus, releasing the cigarette lighter from the device may be difficult.
A problem specific to cigarette lighters is that cigarette lighters can be misused by small children to injure themselves, injure others, or cause property damage. In fact, federal regulations now require that cigarette lighters be childproof. See 16 C.F.R. section 1210. A variety of devices and mechanisms have been created to make cigarette lighters comply with the federal requirements by making cigarette lighters childproof.
For example, many cigarette lighters include stops which prevent the gas lever from being depressed when engaged. Thus, a user must disengage the stop before the cigarette lighter may be used. A drawback of this type of safety mechanism is that the user must remember to reengage the stop after using the cigarette lighter.
An alternate device attempts to address this drawback by providing a stop which is biased in the safety position. In other words, when the stop is released, it automatically returns to the safety position blocking the user from depressing the gas lever. Thus, a user is required to disengage the stop and hold the stop in the disengaged position while using the cigarette lighter, that is, while pivoting the striking wheel and holding the gas lever down. The drawback of such a device is that the user is required to hold the cigarette lighter in an awkward position while using the cigarette lighter. This can greatly increase the risk of the user accidentally injuring himself or herself.
Moreover, such devices are usually designed to be used when the cigarette lighter is in a vertical orientation. Such devices may be much more difficult and dangerous to use if the user holds the cigarette lighter in a horizontal orientation such as to light a campfire, candle, or the like.
Yet another disadvantage of such a device is that the gas port remains uncovered when the stop is engaged. Thus, the lighter may leak fuel from the gas port thereby creating a fire hazard.
Thus, it can be seen that there is a need in the art for a support which may be releaseably secured to an object. There is also a need in the art for a device, which may or may not include a marker, which releaseably attaches to a cigarette lighter to prevent tampering with the cigarette lighter to thereby supplement or replace existing cigarette lighter safety measures.